“Let me be represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks he knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubts of their existence.” -- Bishop Berkeley

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Thursday, October 20, 2011

There's Plenty of Blame to Go Around!

I can't get over the fact that people have such a hard time realizing that multiple actors can be to blame for a situation. You see it all the time in the way that people feel that, "You're blaming the victim!" is a knock-down argument. Well, sometimes the victim is to blame! That doesn't mean the perpetrator isn't also to blame, and probably even more to blame.

This came up the other day in reference to a friend's substance abuse problems. Someone said "He tells his ex-girlfriend that she is an enabler, as if he's not to blame."

Well, he probably is trying to shift blame, but that doesn't mean he is wrong in what he says! I saw them together, and she was a terrible enabler:

Up on Cripple Creek, she sends me
If I spring a leak, she mends me
I don't have to speak, as she defends me
A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one

That does not in the least excuse him. She was an enabler, after all, not an enforcer.

You see the same sort of thing when it comes to terrorist attacks: if someone says US military actions are to blame for prompting such attacks, the wingnuts automatically respond, "Oh, so you think the guys flying the planes had nothing to do with it!"